I have written a book on the politics of autism policy. Building on this research, this blog offers insights, analysis, and facts about recent events. If you have advice, tips, or comments, please get in touch with me at jpitney@cmc.edu

In a week packed with confirmation hearings and Russian hacking allegations, what was he doing meeting with Robert Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist pushing the thoroughly discredited idea that vaccines cause autism?

We know from way back during the Republican debates that Trump himself has dabbled in this dubious territory. One could, however, write it off as one of many campaign oddities that would surely fade away. Not so, apparently.

This is not good. The idea that vaccines cause autism originally arose in a 1998 paper in the medical journal The Lancet that was later found to be fraudulent and had to be retracted. Indeed, the lead researcher acted so egregiously that he was stripped of his medical license.

Kennedy says that Trump asked him to chair a commission about vaccine safety. While denying that, the transition team does say that the commission idea remains open. Either way, the damage is done. The anti-vaccine fanatics seek any validation. This indirect endorsement from Trump is immensely harmful. Vaccination has prevented more childhood suffering and death than any other measure in history. With so many issues pressing, why even go there?

Donald Trump has never been a fan of disabled people. He's got an obsession with the appearance of being "weak" or "crazy," was hyperfocused on the idea that Hillary Clinton had some kind of neurological disorder like epilepsy, which he clearly viewed as a sort of human failing, and infamously mocked reporter Serge Kovaleski. But of all of the groups out there whom Donald Trump disdains, whom his policies will endanger profoundly, autistic people stand to suffer the most.

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Toying with Kennedy and bringing up autism yet again is just one way that Trump threatens this nation's autistic population. And yes, it is a threat because every time someone raises autism as a specter and consequence to fear from vaccines, autism gets cast as the bogeyman. Trump's own spouse seems to view a presumption of autism as an unforgivable insult. Vaccines aren't the really scary thing in these narratives. Autism is. When you set up a neurobiological condition as something to fear, you set up the people who are that neurobiology as fearsome, too. And that has consequences ranging from social shunning and abuse to death and more death.